Unemployment in the United Kingdom has risen to an estimated 4.8 percent in the three months to September, a 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter rise as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause economic disruption, the UK's Office of National Statistics (ONS) said on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 10th November, 2020) Unemployment in the United Kingdom has risen to an estimated 4.8 percent in the three months to September, a 0.7 percent quarter-on-quarter rise as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to cause economic disruption, the UK's Office of National Statistics (ONS) said on Tuesday.
"The UK unemployment rate in the three months to September 2020 was estimated at 4.8%, 0.9 percentage points higher than a year earlier and 0.7 percentage points higher than the previous quarter," the ONS said in a report.
In total, an estimated 1.62 million people over the age of 16 in the United Kingdom were unemployed from July to September, the ONS stated.
Redundancies in the UK rose to a record high of 314,000 in the three months to September, a 73.4 percent rise from the previous quarter, the ONS said.
A similar fall in the estimated number of vacancies was also reported, as the ONS said that the number of available jobs had declined by 21.7 percent.
The ONS said that a larger fall in the number of people in jobs was reported in the United Kingdom during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic this past spring.
The UK government put into force a four-week national lockdown in England on November 5 amid a surge in new coronavirus disease cases.
The new measures prompted Chancellor Rishi Sunak to extend the government's furlough scheme, which provides those unable to work with 80 percent of their wages up to 2,500 Pounds ($3,293) a month, until March.
Since the start of the pandemic, the Department of Health and Social Care has confirmed more than 1.2 million cases of COVID-19 in the UK, after 21,350 new positive tests were registered on Monday.
